


SQUARE-CUT OR PEAR-SHAPED

by executrix



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-20
Updated: 2011-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the multi-fandom hand-kissing meme, but got too long for a commentfic.</p>
    </blockquote>





	SQUARE-CUT OR PEAR-SHAPED

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the multi-fandom hand-kissing meme, but got too long for a commentfic.

For thousands of years, instruction in music has been an integral part of Companion training. True, for centuries, it has not been necessary for Companions to sing and dance to entertain their clients between bouts of…entertainment. Even in planets where the live theater tends toward shadow puppetry, recordings made by professional musicians are available.

However, the Companion him- or herself must learn the subtleties of interpretation, the principles of rhythm, working in a consort and, above all, improvisation.

Atherton Wing felt a pleasurable glow as blood relocated variously as he entered the ballroom with Inara on his arm. When they reached a spot on the ballroom floor in earshot of a group of people, all of whom seemed to be particularly attractive and/or successful, Atherton took half a step backward, grasped Inara’s hand, and tilted forward, his back rigid, to kiss her hand. “As the ancient proverb goes, ‘A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” he said. He opened his jacket, and took out a package skillfully wrapped in lovely fabric. “I have a wonderful present for you! And if you’re a very good girl, I’ll give it to you tonight.”

There was a ripple of indulgent giggles, and a patter of applause from the bystanders. Inara smiled until the muscles of her face screamed. “Let’s go someplace more private,” she said. “I must…talk to you.”

Atherton smirked triumphantly. When they reached a shadowy place behind a pillar, he began to lunge forward to propose that she become his Personal Companion. Inara put up her hand to stop him, then reached into her evening bag. A moment later, after punching in some numbers, she extended her pasukom in his direction. “You see? I’ve reversed the transfer for all the money you paid for this engagement. I don’t want to have anything to do with you, now or ever again. I’m not property, you don’t own me, and being with a Companion is a privilege, not a way for inadequate little men to avoid the need to form a human relationship.”

Atherton peered down at the screen, then up at her face, his features twisted with incomprehension. (Inara was glad of the distortion, it made him look like a cartoon monster.) “Don’t you know how I feel about you, Inara? I’ll…I’ll ruin you for this! You’ll never work again on this planet! Or anywhere else, if I have anything to say about it. And I’m a man of influence.”

Instead of saying, “I’m counting on it!” Inara gave him a sad smile, said, “We all must do what we must,” and drifted out of the ballroom. Her shuttle was still at Atherton’s mansion, of course, so she got into a pedi-cab and paid the cabwallah generously to take her to the Night Market, wait for her, and then take her to pick up the shuttle.

Inara pulled out the pins securing her coiffure, feeling her hair tumble around her shoulders. She thought that she would cut her hair…not penitentially short, but something easy to care for. She unbuckled the strap holding on her sandals, and bought a pair of flat velvet slippers, with curly toes and a sunburst of beaded embroidery. She thought about simply giving the four-hundred-credit stilettos in trade, but thought that she might as well start saving money. Her rent on the shuttle was paid up for the next five months, but there would be many demands on her savings…

For a long time, Inara had thought that many of her clients didn’t need their ashes hauled so much as their heads examined. If she were to re-train as a psychotherapist, she could continue to help people (albeit at lower reimbursement per fifty-minute hour), with less exposure to…the more difficult aspects of their personalities.

Inara moved through the market, sipping at a huge beaker of bubble tea, devouring a plate of bhel puri, inhaling the smoky incense of kebabs over charcoal. She thought that she wouldn’t be terribly unhappy if she were to discover that Mal had dispatched Jayne to clean out Atherton’s safe, and improve the décor by removing some of the tasteless, expensive items that were purchased this year and would be discarded next.

She could hardly wait to tell Simon and Shepherd Book about her new plan. Serenity would be a very different place once it was consecrated to healing…physical, spiritual, and mental. Perhaps her studied would even allow Inara to find a way to help River.

It wouldn’t be easy telling Mal that he was…well, not entirely right, but right in the sense that Inara had come to the end of her time as a Companion. No one could be an active Companion forever, and perhaps it was better to quit at the top of her game.

Inara was a little apprehensive, but no one at Atherton’s estate made a move to prevent her from flying off in her shuttle. The house was dark; she surmised that he was still at the party, probably looking to solace his ego by finding someone to sympathize with his tale (and, perhaps, to accept whatever was in that package. It was too big for a ring box, probably a bracelet or a necklace.

Once she had docked her shuttle, Inara spent an enthralling session on the Cortex, researching programs in clinical psychology. Companion training rated as the equivalent of a University degree, of course, and many of the psychacads would grant her life experience credits.

After a break to brew a pot of tea, Inara was on the catwalk, heading back to her shuttle, when she heard Zoe open the hatch.

“Have a good time?”

“We’re rich!” Kaylee said, swirling her huge pink skirts around her. “Cap’n met up with that fellow—name of Sir Harrow—and he wants us to carry a load of cattle for him. Pays real good, and it ain’t even crooked, so shouldn’t be no trouble.”

“You’re lookin’ pretty smug with yourself, Mal.”

“It was a good night’s work,” Mal said. “Might as well lock up and head back to bed with your husband, Zo’. This wholesome pastoral life starts early in the mornin’.”

“Reckon that’s sheep, sir,” Zoe said, but did leave the cargo bay.  
Inara watched as Mal bowed, took Kaylee’s hand, and began to whirl her around the cargo bay with a fair degree of grace considering lack of experience, mutual inebriation, and extent of crinoline. Inara listened to Mal humming, tunelessly, and Kaylee laughing, musically.

“That old sinner had the right of it,” Mal said. “We could see you clear ‘cross the room, with all them boys sittin’ at your feet, listenin’ to you spout off about engines whether they cared about engines or not. Sir Warwick said, that’s quite a girl you have there, she ain’t just pretty, but she’s smart where it counts, and all I could do was nod my head like one o’them bobble-head dolls.”

Inara watched as, with incentive overcoming champagne and crinoline, Mal pulled Kaylee into an embrace that was very far from casual. Inara turned away, her feet noiseless in comfortable new slippers, and carried the now-cooled teapot back to her shuttle.

It’s all in the timing.


End file.
